Florida A&M University faculty union president Roscoe Hightower — remembered for his gregarious personality and fearless leadership — died unexpectedly, his family said. He was 58.
Hightower was found dead in his home on Thursday, April 4. His older sister, Cynthia Hightower-Hammett, had spoken to him the day before. She said he sounded “fine and jovial” and that he was preparing a salad for dinner.
A couple of Hightower’s friends also spoke to him the day before he died, but when they kept calling and texting him later, they were not getting an answer.
“They knew that something was wrong because it wasn’t like him. If he’s not able to answer, he will always call back,” Hightower-Hammett, 61, told the Tallahassee Democrat. “They thought maybe he had fallen asleep.”
She says friends called the Tallahassee Fire Department; when they arrived, they all gained entry into Hightower’s house to find him dead due to natural causes, Hightower-Hammett said.
Hightower, a FAMU marketing professor of over 20 years, was supposed to be teaching that morning.
“He was very outgoing,” said Hightower-Hammett, a retired science teacher. “I don’t think he ever met a person he did not like, and I don’t think there’s ever been a person who met him and didn’t like him.”
Hightower was a native of Goulds in Miami-Dade County. He left behind two daughters — 18-year-old Jane and 20-year-old Asia.
He was a two-time FAMU alumnus with a bachelor’s degree in 1988 and a master’s degree in 1989, both in business administration. He also earned a doctoral degree from Florida State University in services marketing in 1997.
Before Hightower started teaching at FAMU in 2000, he taught marketing as an assistant professor at The University of Akron in Ohio for three years.
Throughout Hightower’s time at FAMU, he was the Centennial Eminent Scholar, president of the United Faculty of Florida (UFF) FAMU Chapter for six years and founder of the FAMU School of Business & Industry’s Facilities Management degree program.
In addition, Hightower served as a board member on the Facility Management Accreditation Commission and was a U.S. ambassador of the European Facilities Management Association.
Hightower was also a member of the Upsilon Psi chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.
Hightower ‘sorely missed’ by FAMU community
For FAMU School of Business & Industry Dean Shawnta Friday-Stroud, who also serves as vice president for University Advancement, Hightower was more than just a colleague.
Friday-Stroud and Hightower grew up about 10 minutes away from each other and attended the same high school — Miami Southridge Senior High School — before heading to FAMU for college, with Hightower being one year ahead of her.
She says he was “like a big brother and mentor” to her: “He was a dedicated and fearless leader, a colleague and a friend that I knew for over 40 years,” Friday-Stroud said.
“He was committed to excellence in everything he did, and he expected the same from others around him. He was a staple in SBI and in FAMU’s community, and he will be sorely missed.”
FAMU Associate Professor Daaim Shabazz teaches in the School of Business and Industry and says the day prior to Hightower’s passing, the two of them traded jokes about the respective challenges they were facing that day to lighten the mood.
“He was a hard worker and he was a visionary with a lot of ideas,” Shabazz said. “Most of all, he was an advocate and he deeply loved his alma mater.”
As one of the senators who represented the School of Business and Industry in FAMU’s Faculty Senate, Hightower worked closely with the university’s current Faculty Senate President Jamal Brown, who says that Hightower was a “fierce and courageous” leader.
Brown explained how Hightower was on foot a few days ago, going door to door in the different buildings on FAMU’s campus to speak with professors in efforts of recruiting them to be a part of the faculty union.
“Hightower had courage, and he stayed in the business of trying to make sure that the faculty members of the university were represented well and that they were always taken care of in the best way,” said Brown, a FAMU pharmacy professor.
Honoring Hightower in Tallahassee
- The Faculty Senate will be paying homage to Hightower during a previously scheduled Faculty Day event Friday at the University Activity Center on campus, also known as the FAMU Clubhouse.
- The university’s School of Business and Industry will have a wake to celebrate Hightower’s life in the next few weeks, according to Friday-Stroud.
- A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 13, at the Old West Enrichment Center, 2344 Lake Bradford Road, Tallahassee.
Contact Tarah Jean at tjean@tallahassee.com or follow her on X: @tarahjean_.
